To: The Web Walker <The.Web.Walker@pobox.com>
From: Furious Green Thoughts <furious@furious.com>
Subject: Give me my story now or die!

  Look you lazy bastard! I gave you a hundred grand for
a story. I want the story now! I know where you live. I 
know where your children go to school!

  Cough up a story and cough it up now!

Have a nice day,
Furious

To: Furious Green Thoughts <furious@furious.com>
From: The Web Walker <The.Web.Walker@pobox.com>
Subject: OK, you heartless bastard!

  I'm sitting here listening to ten-year-old videotapes 
and trying to get the dogs to shut up. Sounds like they 
got their fangs into another bill collector. No. From 
the high pitched screams it must be a FBI agent.

  Normally this is what passes for my quality time but 
if you have to have something so be it.

Internet Paranoia!

No, it doesn't come at three in the morning like some burned out drug addict looking to steal lawn ornaments from your front yard to hock for his next fix.

No, Internet paranoia comes in broad daylight with the brass balls of a BATF agent serving a warrant in Waco, Texas.

Like a midnight rapist, it lurks behind the "Receive Mail" menu. You don't know if it will be flames from complete strangers, clueless well wishers you spend the next hour trying to figure out how to tell you have no idea what they are talking about, overdue notices from your ISP, the dreaded copyright violation notice from a corporate greed-head, an editor trying to get that story you got that advance for a year ago, your ex-wife's lawyer demanding back alimony, someone from one of those adult chat rooms wanting to meet you in the real world or just another junk email with the same old "Make Money Fast" scam you don't want to read again.

No, the wee hours of the morning are reserved for the "Send Mail" button. "Tell that dumb bastard how clueless he is" it beckons. It lures you on like a cheap hooker with a short skirt up to her ass and black fishnet stocking covering yet not hiding those legs that don't stop at the ground. If you know what I mean and I think you do.

One quick click, a few keystrokes and you can put those morons in their place. Thanks to home computers and the Internet anyone anywhere can explain to the rest of the world how wrong they are with little more than the click of a mouse.

Crowded into my computing corner, caught between my morning beer and my mounting fear, a hand grabs me from behind.

"The rent's late! Our checks are bouncing! The Phone Company won't install a phone line without a deposit! Our grandson is at the hospital with his girlfriend having a baby and we're in the middle of a major earthquake," screams the Web Widow over my shoulder and into the screen of my less than state of art computer.

"Don't worry about the earthquake. It's an old videotape I put in the VCR. Who'll notice another great-grandkid around this place and shouldn't his girlfriend be having the baby?

"Fuck the bills! My editor has found me and I have to produce something."

In retrospect, after seeing the smiles on the faces of the bill collectors coming in and out of the house, I should have chosen my words more carefully.

To: The Web Walker <The.Web.Walker@pobox.com>
From: Furious Green Thoughts <furious@furious.com>
Subject: Give Me a Break.

  You call that crap a story?

  I want meat and I want it now.

Canceling your credit cards,
Green and Furious

To: Furious Green Thoughts <furious@furious.com>
From: The Web Walker <The.Web.Walker@pobox.com>
Subject: Suck Me!

  Heartless bastard! I'm trying to recover from the 
jungle rot I got following Clinton around a bunch of 
third world dumps in Africa.

  I was stuck in some Congo-belt hellhole that was so 
poor only the local despot had cable. The rest of us 
had to watch videotapes of what he watched the night 
before.

  Let me tell you, watching videotapes of some two-bit 
dictator channel surfing is not my idea of fun. The 
dumb ass monkey has the attention span of an autistic 
cockroach and the taste of a shit-eating fly. Thank 
God some "Freedom Fighters" took over the palace. Then 
we were watching Babylon 5 and our ex-beloved leader 
was tied up in the basement watching Gilligan's Island 
reruns.

  Here are my notes from Clinton's trip to Africa. If 
you're in such a goddamn hurry you write the damn story.

First Lady wearing "I'm with stupid =>" T-shirt. Throws candy out limo window to starving villagers. Parents hack children to death fighting for food. It's like the food fight scene from Animal House except everyone has machetes.

Bill bangs chief's wife. Secret Service agents shoot way out. Again!

Little girl hurls herself on hood of presidential limo. Yelling, "I'll love you forever." Bill mutters, "Not again!" SS agents drag her into the jungle. Shots heard.

Another bad hotel; more bad booze; more Clinton groupies; not sure how much longer I can take this. I think the mosquitoes have more of my blood than I do.

One of the groupies brought up a bottle of good scotch. Maybe I can put up with this longer than I thought.

Another backwater country; another boring speech; Prez apologies for VD in Africa. Good joke. He's done more to spread it on this trip than all the horny Peace Corps workers put together. Back to groupie and bottle. She said something about James Carville. Follow up!

Groupie says she knows nothing about Carville but thinks girl on the hood was Monica Lewinsky. Groupie produces another bottle of scotch.

3AM, two bottles of scotch later: Groupie admits Carville has been told to "bring down" the Secretary General of the UN. Seems Clinton wants the job. Waiting for Ted Turner go ahead.

Day something (correct later): Stopped at small village (Three adults, two oxen, five dogs and 14 children.) I think one of dogs is the mayor. Not sure, communication problem with his spokesman, one of the oxen. Prez apologies for death of dinosaurs. The Secret Service shot one of the dogs -- Not the mayor. -- It had a subpoena from Ken Starr in its jaws. Betty Currie still has the shakes. She almost touched it.

I think I have two SS agents on board for plan to dump Hillary and hit the local whorehouses.

Those bastards! They married the local whores and left me with the Clintons. The staff hired the two oxen to replace them. Great headline: Ox Saves President; Steps on Shit Eating Dog! Forget it. They'll never run that.

The staff just told Clinton Judge Wright dismissed the Paula Jones case. "Give me those bongo drums. I want to tell the natives the good news."

Can't sleep. Clinton on "jungle telegraph" all night. Must find groupie and bottle.

Another god-awful day (but it looking up): First Bitch flies home. Bill and me have a whole fucking continent to ourselves. Don't know how he does it. Middle of a wasteland; not even indoor plumbing or toilet paper and he still manages to get his hands on top of the line drugs. The whole village turns out for free presidential kneepads. With the pussy on the hoof in this place, it'll be a week before the presidential shorts are again draped over the presidential staff.

Saw it with my own eyes and I still don't believe it. Bill in back seat of limo with ...

Passed out last night. Woke up on the plane. Not sure where we're going (hell, I don't even know where I've been and how long I was there) but Bill is working on a speech to apologize for Leif Ericson.

I don't know why they call it Greenland. It's cold. It's covered in ice and all in all I wish I'd stayed home fighting the landlord. -- Dumb prick wants last months rent before he'll put the toilet seats back.

Next stop Red China: Who does this limp dick hillbilly think he is? Nixon got corn holed so bad by those pig-sucking communists that he was still walking bow-legged when he boarded the helicopter for his last farewell.

At last we're heading home, no doubt to apologize for apologizing all over the world.